Free Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) by Stacy Gail

apple. At the last second she pulled back, the hardened outer blade of her hand barely grazing his neck before she spun out of his hold completely and yelled, “Fire!”
    It had taken less than five seconds, yet the demonstration was enough to make the class burst into spontaneous applause. And it would have made her smile if she hadn’t seen Nate’s micro-grimace and flex his knee.
    Oh , crap .
    In a heartbeat she signaled to her assistant to join them up at the front. What a great instructor she was. Come to her for training and be crippled in one simple class. She’d be lucky if he didn’t sue.
    “If attacked from behind, it’s best to target the knees and feet before running for your life, screaming fire all the while. Go ahead and give it a try, taking turns as you go.” With a quick rundown of instructions for the assistant, she glanced over at Nate. “Follow me.”
    * * *
    Nate wasn’t sure what Ella had in store for him when she led him down a hallway outside the main gym, but when he saw the telltale red cross on the door she pushed through, he decided to offer up a faint limp. Sure, she had a kick that would have made a normal man cry for mercy, but he was made of sterner stuff. There was no need to tell her that, though, not as long as it got them a little alone time. Alone time meant he could question her without interruption and maybe lure her rare, sun-from-the-clouds smile out of hiding. Or maybe even breathe in the lavender and rosemary scent of her hair...
    He caught his wayward thought and corralled it before it went too far. If Ella was who he thought she was, ideas like that were a definite no-no. If she truly was his target, that put her as off-limits as any woman could possibly be. Life had been too much for her; the last thing she needed was some strange guy who got off on sniffing her hair.
    “Go ahead and hop up on that exam table.”
    Nate brought his attention back to the small room while Ella closed the door behind them. It was about as big as a walk-in closet with white walls and the painfully bright lighting of several bare fluorescent tubes overhead, and smelled vaguely of the cleaners he associated with hospitals. A portable version of a doctor’s exam table waited at the far wall, with a folded-up wheelchair leaning against it. A multi-drawer red cart sat by the opposite wall next to a sink where Ella was washing her hands as if she was about to go into surgery.
    Or, if she was a nurse.
    “It’s really not that big a deal.” But he limped in a pitiable way as he moved to the table. Hopping up wasn’t required. All he had to do was settle back onto it like it was no more than a barstool. “There’s no need to go to so much fuss, you know. You didn’t kick me that hard.”
    “Yes I did, but that’s your fault, not mine.”
    He blinked as she dug into the cart and came up with gloves for herself and a rolled-up, self-adhering elastic bandage for him. So much for trying to ease her conscience. “Excuse me?”
    “You picked me up.”
    “So?”
    “So, I wasn’t expecting that.”
    “I thought you said for me to give it my all or you’d kick my butt out of class.”
    “All I wanted from you was a demonstration of a hold like a bear hug.” She turned to him as she removed the bandage from its package. “I believe my exact words were for you to put your arms around me. Not once did I say, ‘Toss me up into the air as if I’m a three year old.’”
    “I didn’t want to do it in the first place, so I wasn’t exactly hanging on your every word.” And he hadn’t wanted to do it. Making like a nightmare that might lurk in this woman’s past rated on his Things To Do list just below setting his hair on fire.
    Her huffy sigh carried a world of straining patience. “For purposes of teaching the basics of how to deal with an attack from behind, I needed a partner to act out the part, step-by-step. When you decided to improvise and show off how muscly you are with that